


The Shine of the Lights

by honourthecovenant



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mental Illness, OC, Own Character, Rape, Violence, adult OC, noncon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-01-05 20:40:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12197037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honourthecovenant/pseuds/honourthecovenant
Summary: Iris O'Brien has been seeing things all her life. After four years of trying to rebuild her life from the ashes of trauma she thinks she's ready to move. Until the night Pennywise assaults her, that is, beginning a new cycle of abuse.But Iris has a gift. She Shines. She fights back.





	1. Real Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this in a fury since a few days after I watched IT 2017! It is based in this version of the story, though contexts from the book are included. Iris is 23 years old- any references to historical abuse refer to events that happened over the age of consent, though still heinous, and will be left deliberately vague as a weapon for Pennywise to use against her (similar to Bev's experiences). *No* underage stuff here *sprays Holy water*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2018 update- just went in and edited where for whatever reason half the chapter posted twice. Will fix typos another day x

When it happened for the first time Iris thought that she'd gone mad again.

She'd been sectioned twice in her late teens, once in a hospital out of town and then at Juniper Hill Asylum. Iris often joked that the latter experience had been the one to set her on the straight and narrow, but in reality she'd hated it so utterly that she'd been forced to lie her way out. It didn't matter to Iris that the ceiling still moved sometimes, or that she heard people speak when their lips weren't moving. She had her apartment back now, her own bed rather than a bunk with papery sheets that chafed and crackled every time she turned over. There were no hard-eyed orderlies with even harder fists, no inmates yanking her hair or stealing food when no-one was looking. Adjusting back to normal life had been a struggle of its own. It had taken years to stop flinching at every raised voice and sudden movement, to hold herself poised to throw a blow at the mere hint of a threat. Still, she'd gotten through it as best she could, and had even learned to cherish her wonky version of reality. It was hers, and hers alone. 

The few friends and family who'd kept in touch through those troubled days were proud of her, overzealously so. It was easy for them to forget how bad the hallucinations had once been. Easy to call them a chemical imbalance, an illness, vapour on the air. They didn’t know how quickly an empty room could become a hell pit, how a familiar face could flay itself down to pulsing flesh and bloody bone. Iris did. Every day since her release from Juniper Hill she had stayed vigilant, watching herself and her world for any significant change. She was never so careless as to be optimistic, but she had thought she’d been doing well.

Until that night.

***

It was too hot to sleep, every room sucked airless by the pressure of hovering rain. Iris had taken three tabs of Benadryl and they had barely touched her, making her feel sick rather than particularly tired. She wasn’t meant to take them in combination with her other pills, but the thought of the 6am alarm for work drove to knock them back all the same. 

After a fruitless tussle with the bedsheet she sat up in defeat. The notion of setting up camp in the cool bathroom occurred to her, and as much as it made her laugh she found herself dragging a bundle of sheets and a pillow out into the hallway. As a child Iris had often spent dull afternoons making nests in the bathtub, pretending to be a mermaid princess or an adventurer at sea. There seemed to have been a lot of these afternoons, come to think of it; her old house had always felt empty, no matter who was home. God, hadn't she once hit her temple on the faucet while pretending to row too enthusiastically and cried herself sick? 

Yup, Iris thought, grimly. And I had to clean it up all by myself.

She was careful not to re-enact this mistake, scooting down just far enough that the faucets were well out of range. It was almost cosy, even fun, like a sleepover for one. Iris let her eyes close against the balmy dark, and at last felt herself drift.

Across the room the bathroom door banged against the wall, and there were footsteps. Definite footsteps, bare soles slapping against the tiles. Iris scrambled up onto her haunches, fingers gripping the sides of the tub so tightly that she could feel her knuckles throb. She felt horribly exposed, having slept naked to stave off the heat. It took all the courage she had not to call out senselessly into the gloom. Footsteps and imagined noises had been commonplace for her, once upon a time. Iris felt a cold slither of disappointment that it was happening again after so long. 

She concentrated on breathing deeply and evenly, focusing herself in the present. This had always helped her to separate the physical from fantasy, making any hallucination feel like the remnants of a dream. But this time it didn't work. The bathroom light flickered on, strobing just long enough for Iris to make out the features of her mother's face one moment, the slobbering jaws of a black hound the next. Another flicker and it was both at once, a thrashing canine body trapped grotesquely beneath a haggard woman's skin. Iris screamed; she couldn't help it. She pressed her fingers against her eyes, breaking her vision into coloured sparks. Still she saw the creature, and this time it was standing right in front of her.

"You're not there," Iris said, half to herself, half to the beast looming over her. "None of those monsters were real. This isn’t real. And Mom..."

She shook her head. Iris' mother had been in prison since her Juniper Hill days, serving time for all the wrongs that had been wheedled out of Iris in therapy. Not long ago Iris had read in a newspaper column that she'd developed cervical cancer, and wasn't likely to ever see parole. Iris wasn't sorry. The woman had no place in her life, not now. It was cruel that Iris’ mind had conjured her back, down to the half-leering, half-pitiful look that she so well remembered 

Fucking Benadryl, Iris thought uncertainly. Side effects. Must be.

She stood up, meaning to put her hand through the middle of the vision to prove its lack of substance to herself. No hallucination she'd ever experienced had ever possessed solid being, but her fingers connected with a firm chest, slippery white material skating beneath. Something round, spongy, a row of them. The lights twitched once more, and this time she didn't see her mother, or a demon dog.

It was a clown.

Or at least it looked like one, at a glimpse. Iris took in an eerie white suit with pompom buttons, a shock of hair like still flame, a curling buck-toothed smile, lips painted reddish-black. No, not painted; while the skin of its face resembled clown-paint, skin was all it was. Its small, blazing eyes roved freely about its sockets, one fixed on Iris, the other staring towards the Heavens as if to mock God Himself. 

"Shit," said Iris.

She scurried backwards, forgetting that she had nowhere to go apart from the other side of the bath. The clown bent forwards at the waist, running its tongue along its lower lip. A string of drool dangled from its chin, swinging pendulously as it looked at her. 

"Please, babygirl, just one. You know Mama needs the money. I'll get sick if I don't get my med'cine, you seen it, baby, how I shake 'n' sweat. Just the one, I'll tell him to be good to ya.”

That was her mother's voice, thin and wheedling, as she had heard it so many times. The realisation knocked the breath out of Iris like a blow. She moaned, clapping her hands over her ears. The clown laughed, slapping both knees with gloved hands. Its face rippled, becoming Iris' mother, then shifting between her mother's multiple friends, ones Iris had spent a long time trying to forget. Wet mouths, shining eyes, all the same, in their desire. 

"I'm seeing things. Hearing things," Iris muttered. "None of this is really here. It'll go away soon."

The clown let out a snarling chuckle and lurched forward, snatching a handful of Iris' hair in its fist. It twisted hard, wrenching her up against its body so that they were almost face to face. Scalp burning, she struggled to pull herself out of its grasp and couldn't. It was too strong, far stronger than any man could be. 

"Let me go, let me go, oh my god."

She couldn't remember when she'd started crying, but now she was, sobs breaking every word. The clown mocked her in high-pitched tones that drove like pins into her skull.

"No, no, no I won't. You smell so sweet."

It pressed its face to the crook of her neck and inhaled, then licked her throat, grazing her windpipe with its jagged teeth. 

"But still not sweet enough. Let's see if I can make you reek, shall we?"

Iris beat her hands and feet against the clown's wiry body, aiming for what she knew should be soft and sensitive parts. But this thing wasn't human, taking each blow with a squeaking little laugh. It shook her like a doll, making her feel sick and disoriented. Her breasts bounced painfully against her chest, and she saw it watching the motion, eyes narrowed in wicked glee.

"No, stop, no!"

"Noooo?"

The clown yanked her head up and down, forcing her to nod.

"Yes. Well, Iris, I agree. Isn't that gonna be fun?"

It squeezed her right breast in its free hand so hard that the flesh bulged between its fingers. Iris felt vomit rush to the back of her throat, but swallowed it back again. If she threw up now she was likely to choke, or else make the creature want to hurt her more. 

"Who are you? Do I know you? Why are you doing this to me?"

It seemed a stupid question to ask a being that could change its shape and voice at will, but Iris knew that anything that wasted time had the chance to help her. Besides, the clown seemed almost flattered to be asked.

"Pennywise. Pennywise the Dancing Clown. You don't know me, but I know you, Iris. I know all the best, worst things about you. The things that will make you taste so good when I eat you. It's your lucky day, and you are very special. I don't usually feed on grown-up girls like you. But you're easy."

The last word came out in her mother's voice, cruel, taunting. 

"Someone very kind has done delicious things to you, tenderised you."

Pennywise turned, smashing Iris against the closest wall. She squirmed, tears blurring her vision again so that the clown smeared into abstract reds and whites, like paint in the rain. A hand moved over her body without any semblance of human sensuality, pressing her belly, pinching her thighs, between her legs up into the dry lips of her cunt. It was feeling her the way a farmer might his livestock, probing her for pain and fear. She shut her eyes, hunting her racing mind for any hidden tool that she might have forgotten. 

There was only one.

"Don't you want to look at your new friend Pennywise?" asked the clown, knocking Iris' head against the wall. "Open your eyesies, Iris. Be a good girl."

Iris heard it speak, but now as if from inside a jar. She had detached herself, and was by now watching the scene unfold at a distance. This was all happening to someone else, another Iris, poor thing. She couldn't feel anything at all. The clown- Pennywise, as it called itself -sniffed the air and bared a mouthful of razor teeth. It seemed to have realised from the smell of her that Iris had taken herself away, and that enraged it.

“You look at me now, whore,” it said, taking on the form of one of her mother's filthy friends. “I ain't payin' to fuck a dead thing. You look at me.”

It parted the front of its suit, and from her distant point Iris was aware of something hard and warm jabbing her belly. She felt mildly surprised; she'd never imagined a monster would have genitals, or at least any need of them. But if it could make itself become a dog or a woman it could give itself whatever it wanted, to frighten her. And she was frightened again now, as far away as she was. She couldn't help it. Those old helpless feelings filled her like air in a balloon, and any second her floating state threatened to pop.

Pennywise smacked Iris' face playfully with an open palm and pushed a long finger into her mouth. She gagged reflexively, tasting the salt of blood and stale candy. The finger went further and further in, tickling the back of her throat. She brought her teeth crashing down, but somehow caught only the empty fabric of the glove. 

"There you are again," said Pennywise, giggling. "Pop goes the weasel."

A thrust, and pain roared through Iris' abdomen. She’d been hurt this way before, but this was different, a straining, lancing agony, as if the clown's cock was laced with barbs. Perhaps it was. Iris twisted back and forth, shrieking, not caring how many hairs tore away in the clown's fist. Pennywise dropped her head and grasped her throat instead, squeezing until her cries compressed into a hoarse wheeze. It was panting and drooling obnoxiously as it fucked her, making her think of some hideous animal’s young. 

"Such a pretty girl," it said. "So. Much. Fear."

A white gash of teeth again, row upon gleaming row, poised to bite off her face. Its long, wet tongue unfurled and lashed the tears from her eyes. Again and again it drove its cock into her, forcing her body into painful, clenching spasms. Iris clutched the front of its suit and ripped, wondering amidst her terror if there would be skin underneath or perhaps fur, or scales. Bizarrely the material sealed itself back together, like a healing wound. Even the suit, then, was a biological part of this creature, or counted as one in this form.

"Please let me go," said Iris. "Please. Please. I won't tell anyone."

More laughter, and this time she could understand it.

"You'd tell on poor old Pennywise? What a tattletale. Who would believe it? Who would even remember you opened your mouth, Irisssss?"

It was true. Everyone in town had read the papers or watched the news when Iris' mother was sentenced. Some had even known about the horrors in the O'Brien household long before the story broke. But as with any Derry drama it was soon forgotten, or shrugged off as 'just one of those things'. The ambivalence had been worse than ostracism, making Iris feel like she didn't exist. Children had been going missing recently, but even that barely seemed to matter to anyone. No one would care that the Juniper Hill girl had been attacked by a clown. And a demon clown? Crazy talk from the crazy girl. 

"Please, P-Pennywise."

The clown almost purred, its eyes alight with an orange blaze.

"Begging. That's good."

It was delighted with her, Iris thought, enjoying every fresh struggle and helpless move of fear. She might as well be seasoning herself for the roast. But it was hard not to debase herself when she was in so much pain and humiliation. The creature became even more violent with every passing minute, bruising her breasts, smacking her spine against the wall with its brutal rhythm. It seemed too distracted to change its face or voice now, or perhaps it merely preferred being a clown. Iris tried to guess what would happen when it came. Maybe acid would corrode her womb from the inside, or perhaps it would slice her open and devour her to enhance its climax. It was too much to bear.

Again Iris closed her eyes, dissociating so intensely that she was no longer aware of the room at all. There was only herself and Pennywise, two points of bright light in immeasurable dark. But the clown's light was different, bristling in a hostile, orange mass that flared as she looked at it. She only saw it for a split second before she jerked back into herself, and even that was enough to make her seize in mindless dread. 

Pennywise could not have known what have happened, yet it appeared it had some sense of it for the clown began to squeeze Iris' skull in both hands, its face wrought with fury. There was panic there as well, the first and only hint of vulnerability it had shown. The pressure made Iris think her head was about to burst like a dropped pumpkin, and it might have done had Pennywise not let out a giddy sound of pleasure and slammed its cock into her a final time. She felt her cunt clamp even tighter around it, holding it in even as the rest of her itched to get as far away as possible. Pennywise dragged her away from the wall and held her in mid-air, letting her toes just graze the floor.

"I'll let you go," it said. "But only because I want to savour you. A little bit of you at a time."

Iris could tell that it was lying, at least in part. The clown didn't like that she had seen into it, and it didn't dare go all the way and kill her in case something happened to put it at risk. 

But what? She didn't understand what she'd seen, or what it meant. 

IT doesn't know that, she thought.

Suddenly Pennywise threw her down, discarding her, and was gone, taking the lights out with it. 

Iris lay on her back, locked into place by fear, pain and exhaustion. She cried harder than she ever had in her life, arms wrapped around her bare breasts in a weak attempt to scrape back some dignity.

I'll have to check myself back into Juniper Hill. I've finally gone over the edge. Gone bananas.

Even as she thought it Iris didn't believe it. Her body hurt in ways that even the most destructive self-harmer couldn't manage, and between her legs a salty stream began to drip onto the tiles. No female could produce such a fluid by themselves, although now she was willing to believe in anything. Iris was neither very religious nor spiritual- she had long-decided that if God existed then she disliked him -but she was certain that the thing that had just assaulted her was a being from another world, quite foreign to this one. 

Those orange lights- they’d made her think of stars, but alive and hungry. She couldn't even begin to guess why they wore the guise of a clown, or why they had come to her, of all people. All she knew was that had been intent on frightening her, and eating her, and had been angered by her resistance. She supposed it wasn't used to that if it usually chose to prey on children. 

There was no use lying on the floor, going over it all again and again. Iris somehow suspected that the clown would not be back again tonight. It was wary of her now, and she could use that to her advantage. She would call her doctor tomorrow, up her medication and get back in therapy- properly this time. Even if the clown had been a hallucination it wouldn't hurt to deal with her past. What was there to be afraid of in an old dying drug addict, or her men who were now ancient or dead themselves? Iris wasn't that helpless teenager anymore. It would have to find something else to taunt her with.

As Iris slowly got to her feet and scrubbed herself at the sink she numbly remembered that Pennywise had briefly taken the form of a dog. and pondered over it. Odd that the clown would choose something that she wasn’t afraid of, even liked, much of the time. A ghostly memory pushed at her, taunting her. She forced it down. 

No sooner had she re-entered her bedroom she was flat out on her mattress, plunging into a deep, sickened sleep. She had no dreams, and didn't wake again til morning. 

 


	2. White and The Wishing Chair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After weeks of relative quiet Iris tries to forget Pennywise, the rape, everything from that awful night. But It has not forgotten her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, lovely people! I've actually had this story saved in email drafts for weeks waiting for my invite on here sooo I have a few chapters written in advance :) 
> 
> Enid Blyton, if you didn't know, was an English female writer whose children's books were incredibly popular during the 1940's. Nowadays some can be a pretty cringeworthy read as she was a rampant racist, but the fantasy elements really appealed to many oblivious children who wanted to be spirited away. I thought it would be fitting to include a reference to her writings; you'll soon see why!
> 
> PS. I am a dolt and forgot to use Rich Text last time! My dear italics are here, praise jesus finally we can see what's going on with emphasis haha

The following weeks passed by undisturbed, clipped to a safe routine. Iris would get up at 6am for work, brush her thick black hair into a neat chignon and head down to the bookshop for a slow morning behind the counter. She made sure that her breaks were spent with co-workers, never alone, and even trips to the stockroom were a chummy affair. After work she'd take the bus to therapy- which, for once, she felt was helping -before heading home for dinner and an early night with a generous dose of sleeping pills. The tighter and more mundane her schedule the more relaxed Iris became, confident that whatever had happened in the bathroom that night was wedged firmly in the past.

Weekends were rather more stressful. They were bloated with too much spare time, quiet moments that left Iris checking the corners anxiously for any sign of movement. She made attempts to meet up with friends, but after a full week in the reluctant company of other people she found it draining. Iris missed just being able to _be_ , sitting with a book or merely her thoughts. Her pills didn't seem to be making much of a difference, either. Almost every day she heard echoes of children's voices, as loud as if they were in the apartment with her, and sometimes even saw the shadows of their anguished faces imprinted in the wallpaper. She told herself that she'd merely been watching too many televised news reports, spent too long gazing at the posters pinned up around town. Still, she couldn't help remembering what Pennywise had said-: _'I don’t usually go for grownup girls like you’ ._

Maybe the only reason that Iris had seen no sign of it was because it was occupied with _other_ prey.

She'd started carrying discrete weapons around with her: nail scissors in her purse, an extra heavy book at her desk at work. It was impossible to say how much damage they'd do to the clown, if any, but it made Iris feel more secure to have them, all the same. Day after day passed without event, and still she remained armed. Only after the third week did Iris let herself relax, as her therapist had said she must. Little by little she was able to pretend she’d forgotten that night, even Pennywise itself.

But _it_ didn’t forget _her_.

One day a call came through at the bookshop, not from a customer but a sobbing, hysterical woman. She gasped so much between words that Iris was able to understand her, though her shuddering panic made an old chill turn in her stomach. She fetched the manager, Mr. White, from his office and hovered beside him as he talked down the receiver in sympathetic tones. He kept scratching the bald spot behind his ear and sighing, his ruddy complexion turning grey.

"Yvonne," he said at last, ushering over one of the girls tidying the bookshelves. "Would you come over here a second? It's your mother. Something's… happened."

_Something's happened._

By now they all knew what that meant.

Yvonne swayed on her feet, tears spurting, wiping mucus from her upper lip with her sweater sleeve. Her mother still screaming on the other end of the phone, reaching an unbearable pitch of grief. Eventually Mr. White eased the receiver out of Yvonne’s grip and placed it back in the cradle. Looking around at her co-workers Iris saw that they all appeared ill and unsettled. After a minute of uncomfortable silence Mr. White said, "I think everyone should take the afternoon off. Fridays are always quiet, anyway, and I'm sure we all want to go home and pray Yvonne's little sister gets found safely."

"I'll stay," Iris said, immediately.

She would have rather jumped out of a window than sit alone in her apartment thinking about another missing kid.

"You sure?" Mr. White asked her, eyebrows raised. "If you don't mind me saying so you've not looked so well recently. You could do with the time off as much as anyone. Heck, maybe more."

"No, really. I'll keep an eye out for any customers popping up. You never know."

"Well, if you insist. Just remember to lock up, okay?"

"Sure."

"You're a good kid, Iris. I mean that."

As everyone filed out of the store Iris heard the unmistakable sound of girlish tears, fading away only as the door slipped closed.

 _Yvonne’s sister_ , she thought, and shivered. Hallucination or not, there was no doubt something awful had happened to the child. Gruesome scenarios ran through her mind like some hideous flipbook, playing themselves back to back. Iris hastily busied herself by wiping down the inside of the windows and rearranging some of the book displays. Few people were out in the streets even at this time. A few shuffling homeless folk, a group of untidy children on bicycles, that was all. Derry was looking more and more like a ghost town every day. Iris pictured everyone holed up in their houses, glued to the television or locked in bitter argument.

No, she was being pessimistic. Not every home was like that. Some kids grew up spoiled and happy, like in the tome of Enid Blyton stories that was currently sitting behind the counter, waiting to be read. There was always cake and presents and adventure, two loving parents waiting with open arms at the end of it all. Even the baddies tended to turn out not so wicked on the inside, or else got marched off by the good old English coppers and never seen again. Iris found herself wishing she could step inside a chapter and never come back. Instead she did the next best thing and flipped to where she'd bookmarked a page, perching on the edge of the counter like a child.

She was several pages into _The Adventures of the Wishing Chair_ when the tinkle of the opening door caught her attention. Mr. White stood in the doorway, his hands hidden behind his back.

"Oh, sorry Mr. White," Iris said, jumping quickly down from the counter. "It was so quiet I... I didn't think. I know it's not very professional."

"Don't be silly, Iris. I know it's practically a dead zone in here today. Which is why I thought I'd bring you these to cheer you up."

The little man stepped forward and weighted the string of a red balloon under Iris' book. Grinning, he then turned to offer her something round and sticky.

"A candy apple!" she said, laughing. "God, I haven't had one of those in forever! Is there a fair on or something? I mean, there can't be, not with the curfew and stuff."

"Plenty more where that came from," said Mr. White. "Go on, eat it! You need some weight back on you. You're skinny as a stray."

Iris had never been quite comfortable with Mr. White's over-familiar comments, but she was so touched by the gesture that she let it slide.

"Thanks, Sir," she mumbled through a mouthful of toffee. "You didn't have to do this."

"Ah, but I wanted to," he said.

He watched her eat, head tilted to one side. Iris had never noticed what colour his eyes were before, but she did now: pale brown, almost amber in the afternoon light. They hardly blinked at all.

"Is it good? You _look_ good, eating it. Oh yes. Look at you."

His tone had changed, thickening as if his tongue, too, was sticky with toffee.

"That tongue. Those lips. I can see it's true what folks used to say about the O'Brien girl, taking any cock that walked through her front door. Pretty, for a nut-job. Big eyes. Big mouth. Tight cooch."

Iris choked in shock. She tried to pull the apple out of her mouth to defend herself, but somehow it seemed to be glued to the roof of her mouth. Mr. White had never talked like this before. In fact, it was widely known that he was gay, and was too much of a soft touch to be crude even if that hadn't been the case.

"There was always something wrong with the O'Brien house,” he said. “Look at your mother, arms full of needles and dust up her nose, and your whack-job Irish father, though he didn't hang around long. Oh, no-one could blame him. You were crazy as a shithouse rat, crazier than he ever was. He got while the getting was good. He didn’t have to see how you turned out.”

It was surreal, hearing this filth in the quiet little bookstore, as if someone had cussed in church. Iris couldn't help listening in awed fascination, her fingers still scrabbling to prise the toffee from her mouth.

"You've grown up a little, since then," Mr. White said, slyly. "But I'll bet you haven't changed. I heard that one time a guy knocked on your mother's door and said, 'I have a little furry friend I want your girl to play with. Would she do that?' And you would have done it, too, if your mother wanted the money badly enough. You were a slut. You could have run a mile from that woman and her whore’s cunt of a house- you were old enough -but you didn’t, did you? You liked it."

Iris had heard enough. Grabbing her purse from the floor she marched towards the door, resisting the urge to smack Mr. White around the head with it. His arm shot out and caught her by the elbow.

"What are you doing? _Quitting?_ I don't think so. Nobody else in this town would hire you. I was short-staffed, and I guess I took pity on you. I'm a very nice man. I think you should thank me for that."

He reached up and plucked the toffee apple from Iris' mouth. She felt a strip of skin tear from her gum-line and shrieked in pain.

"On your knees," Mr. White said. "And thank me."

Iris hadn't even noticed him unzipping his pants, but he had, his cock standing almost upright from his zipper. Now Iris really did swing for him. She was glad she'd kept hold of all her spare change for the purse was as solid as an anvil. There was a satisfying _pock_ as it struck Mr. White in the mouth. Drops of blood scattered outward from a split lip, staining the hem of Iris' skirt. Mr. White didn't make a sound, only raised his hands to his face. Iris hit him again, this time catching the back of his knuckles. She could feel her heart pumping a glad, angry rhythm, a fire of adrenaline circling her bloodstream. It wasn't just Mr. White she was hitting, it was all the men who’d hurt her, it was her mother, it was _herself_. She thought about tugging her keys out of her purse and jabbing him with them, just to see how much more blood she could tease out.

Mr. White moved first.

He clapped his palm on the top of her skull and brought her down to her knees, somehow able to reach up despite his short stature. Only he wasn't short, Iris saw, not now. He towered over her, his squat figure ironed thin. The flat, kindly face was long, smirking, and white as a blinded eye.

Iris dropped her purse. The contents exploded over the carpet- coins, lipstick, tampons, a stick of deodorant, all rolling away under the nearby bookshelves. She craned her head wildly towards the windows, praying that someone would walk by and see what was happening.

No one did.

"Missed me, didn't you Iris?" hissed Pennywise, stroking a gloved hand through her hair. It came loose from its chignon and spilled out down her back in disarray, and into her eyes. "Yes? No? Oh, you thought I was going to forget about you. Why would I do that? I want to play with you for a long, long, long time."

"Why can't you leave me alone? You... you have the children."

"Always the same questions. You run your mouth. Why don't you just leave it open? Might catch a fly. Or something else."

It squeaked with laughter and jerked Iris' head down level with its cock. It seemed to have daubed its phallus with white paint to match its face, which should have been comical, but was so horribly unfunny that Iris wanted to cry. She pressed her mouth tight shut, biting the insides of her lips. Pennywise tutted and clamped her nostrils shut between two fingers.

"Got your nose. You better open up before I twist it right off."

Iris could hear the sick pleasure in the clown's voice, and remembered something a therapist had once told her: rape wasn't about sex, it was about power. She’d never considered what her mother's friends had done as rape- she’d agreed to it, hadn’t she? But _this_ was, in its purest form. After all, what was more powerful an act than conquering one's prey?

The grip on her nose tightened. Iris didn't quite dare to disobey the clown’s wishes, but she was also too afraid to follow them. What if its cock became a drill-bit in her throat, ploughing through soft tissue and white bone alike? Or it might open tiny jaws like a serpent and snap her face off. She'd heard that children's body parts had been found scattered like crumbs down by the river, or hanging like honeysuckle from nearby trees. It was all too easy to imagine the _real_ Mr. White and her co-workers stumbling into the store to see her innards lining the bookshelves.

Iris opened her mouth to beg for her life, but that was a mistake. The clown jerked its foul organ down her gullet, half-suffocating her in the process. It stretched her jaws so wide she heard them creak with effort, felt the strain in an ache behind her ears. Iris gagged on the taste of standing water, filthy, stagnant, coating the inside of her mouth with an oily film. She wanted to spit until her glands were dry, but Pennywise wouldn't let go of her, slapping her head up and down on its dick like a toddler bouncing a rubber ball. Coughing and foaming Iris took it into her throat. The clown stopped pinching her nose in order to pat her swollen cheeks.

"You didn't forget how to do it," it said, smugly. "Four years of pretending you didn't enjoy it, liar liar pants on fire. You know what happens to liars, Iris? Their tongues go black and drop. Right. _Off_."

Pennywise exploded with hysteria as Iris let out a muffled shriek and clawed at its hips with both hands, trying to shove it away. She thought desperately of the last thing that it had put into her mouth, its finger, and what had happened to the digit when she snapped. Not much, as far as she could recall.

"Terror," it crooned, dripping saliva onto her face from above. "So close. I can really taste it."

*Taste this* Iris thought senselessly, childishly, and gnashed her teeth upon the clown's cock, shaking her head back and forth with rabid intensity. She heard skin pop under the force, felt blood gush stickily over her tongue and twist like vapour in the air. The scream that came out of Pennywise was both bestial and infant-like, frightening Iris so badly that she let go of its appendage as if it had scalded her and scuttled back against a bookshelf. She realised that she'd wet herself, but there was no time to be ashamed of it. Pennywise's eyes flared in their sockets with furious excitement. It leapt for her, slipping back into the form of the vast black dog she’d glimpsed in the bathroom. This time it looked more like a werewolf, rippling with muscle and steely claws.

"I won't let you scare me with... that," Iris panted, ducking behind the bookshelf. " _Nothing_ from back then. It's over."

This was a lie. Although she'd already emptied her bladder Iris' insides felt so weak that she was sure another stream would pass out of her. The store was small, leaving her little room to hide, let alone run. As the wolf-dog barrelled towards her she rammed her shoulder up against one of the book shelves and pushed, hoping for it to topple over. It barely even budged; Iris hadn't predicted that it would be so heavy. However, three rows of books avalanched from their positions, raining down onto the creature's hairy back. It roared, dazed, and Iris took the opportunity to run for the door of Mr. White's office, her wet skirt flapping about her thighs.

The doorknob wouldn't move. Iris banged and rattled it, knowing that Mr. White had left it open for her to lock up at the end of the day. It was stuck fast, obstinate in her shaking fist. She glanced over her shoulder. The wolf-dog was standing three feet away, hackles raised. Iris dropped her hands to her pockets, praying that they weren't empty. They came out dusted in lint, hair pins bristling between her knuckles.

"What are you gonna do, Iris?" the wolf asked in the clown's voice. "Pop my eyes out? Turn me into a pincushion? I'd have that pretty neck out before you had even the teensiest chance to stick me."

"I won't let you touch me again."

Iris began to move slowly, her back pressed against the wall. She didn't let herself blink, imagining that if she broke eye-contact the wolf would spring.

"You will," said Pennywise. "You want it. You like it."

It ran at her head-on. Iris jumped to the left, causing the wolf to smash into the wall where she'd been standing. Already disoriented from the onslaught of books it lay on its back, panting. Its underbelly was soft, white, with very little hair. Scared as she was, Iris knew that if she didn't take a chance to injure it now she never would. She slammed both fists into the wolf's gut, many of the hairpins lancing tender skin. A whoop of disbelief sputtered out of her; she hadn't expected it to work.

 _I've made this thing bleed twice in one day,_ she thought as she watched it writhe in pain on the floor. _It was arrogant. I can hurt it._

The wolf sat up like a man, its spine cracking as it folded in half. Already Iris could see the ridge of the clown's face surfacing under its lupine features. She twisted around, vaulting over the counter to retrieve the Enid Blyton book she'd left there. It would be heavy enough to smash the glass panel in the main door, which she suspected was now probably jammed too by Pennywise’s influence. She wrapped the sleeve of her dress over her hand, anticipating a fountain of broken glass. Then she slammed the book's spine against the door, shaking it in its frame, but it did not break. Iris turned the book over in confusion, and as she did so the pages dropped out like rotten leaves, sodden to mulch in her hands.

A gloved hand slipped over the back of her neck in a creeping caress.

Iris screamed, but she was down on the floor before she could move. Her face was grazed by the rough carpet. Pennywise’s weight crushed her back, shaking blood over her. She could smell the metallic tang of it mingling with the sourness of her own piss.

Iris thought, quite distinctly: _My mind is going to crack. I can't take this anymore._

"Someone's made a mess on themselves," it crooned, its lips close to her ear. "Gutless little brat. You'll pay for bleeding me, human. Pay with more than tears and reeking fear."

It ripped her skirt at the back, the point of a claw pushing through the tip of one gloved finger. Iris felt it score the length of her spine, causing pain to flare like a string of fire.

 _It could peel off my skin and wear it like a glove, if it wanted,_ she thought. _Or a handpuppet._

The image of Pennywise entertaining children with her dancing, bloody corpse was awful, but she found herself laughing so hard a bubble of mucus burst from her right nostril. Pennywise must have thought she was crying for it licked the back of her neck hungrily and pressed its crotch against her exposed behind.

"Suffer."

The swollen head of its cock pushed at her vulva, then edged down, crowning the second aperture. Iris flinched; none of her mother's men had been allowed _that_ , in case something tore and she had to see a doctor. Injuries _there_ couldn't be explained by horse-riding or falling off a bicycle, after all. Her muscles were so tight that the merest touch agonised her.

"One last ripe cherry," said Pennywise, gleefully. "Isn't this special?"

Its buck teeth nipped her throat, almost like a teenage lover clumsy in their first time. Iris moaned. She was trying to hold the strings of her sanity together, reaching for that blissful faraway point she'd found the last time it had taken her.

_Pretend you're with little Mollie and Peter and that elf they hang out with, whirling away on the Wishing Chair to another land, another planet all together. Somewhere the houses are made of gingerbread, where there are markets that sell everything you ever wanted. Sweet biscuits and birthday parties and fresh lemonade._

Pennywise forced itself harder against her, into her, piercing her tight dryness. Thin skin fissured and Iris howled against the carpet, losing her fantasy in squeezing, panic-stricken agony. This, apparently, was still not quite enough to satisfy, for as she bucked and thrashed it clamped its jaws on the back of her neck and bit down. It didn't bite deep- clearly its intent was to torture, not yet to kill -but the needle points of a thousand teeth gathered the top layer of skin like a concertina. A weak gasp escaped Iris' lips and she went limp, certain that if she fought too hard the clown would flay her in an instant.

_Think about the fucking Wishing Chair, the places you'd go. Christmasland, Crazy Town, the Macroverse. Anywhere but here._

She tried, tried so very hard, holding her breath in the hope of becoming lightheaded and slipping away more easily. But Pennywise had apparently remembered her efforts of weeks ago and growled, blood bubbling from the corners of his mouth and onto Iris' cheeks. It slammed in and out of her with renewed aggression, smashing her thin hips into the ground so that she could feel the bruises already beginning to form. Madness danced inside Iris, threatening to take her over. If she lost her mind it would kill her, no doubt, and that would be a sweet relief.

No. There would be no relief, no peaceful nothingness. Her body and soul would belong to it, and who knew what cruel afterlife Pennywise had crafted for its victims? She had to live now, and die in her own time. It could rape her all it wanted, bite her to shreds. She would not let herself fall to what other horrors it had left for her. _Iris_ was no longer there. The _real_ her was in the Wishing Chair, off to a place beyond the beyond, vast and eternal and without substance. It was a place she could see in the corner of her eye, just a grain of it, but in that grain something unimaginable looked back at her. Somehow she knew its name.

"Maturin."


	3. The Turtle and the Razor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris learns of Pennywise's old enemy, and her ally, but in the wake of another rape she loses faith in Him and herself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for self harm in this one!

 Iris felt the clown rear back, its teeth unhooking from her neck with a wet click. Its cock had softened inside her, as if repulsed by the three hard syllables she had uttered.

 "What did you say?"

 "I... I don't know."

 The clown snapped yanked Iris half-upright against his chest, straining a muscle in her lower back.

 "My enemy. You called on Him. That half-dead old fool."

 "I don't know what you mean. I..."

 Iris thought of the lights that had been Pennywise, the strange place- _the_ _Macroverse -_ that had come to her mind, unsummoned. _She_ had not called anyone, not consciously, but some Great Something had noticed her need, and come to her. 

 "He's a meddler," Pennywise mused. "He likes humans. He amuses himself by speaking with you, but He can't help you. Or won't. He cares more about the children, innocents. There's nothing innocent in you to save, is there, Iris?"

 The clown turned Iris onto her back and rose to its haunches with an unnatural grace. There was disgust written into its ghastly features as well as amusement, like a boy setting ants on fire with a magnifying glass. Iris tried not to meet its eyes. She felt weak and degraded, but a little triumphant at having warded the creature off again. It would be dangerous to let it see her pride, even a glimmer of it. 

 "I don't _need_ your fear," said the clown. "I could kill you now, strip your bones and leave them in the gutter. Buuuut I'm not hungry enough for that. It would be a waste of good meat, don't you think?"

 Iris looked at the bib of blood running from the clown's chin to the front of its suit, some fresh (hers) and some hours old (Yvonne's sister, she supposed). No, of course it wasn't hungry. But Iris sensed that the taint of Maturin was upon her, souring her, protecting her. Pennywise wouldn't consume her while it still lingered on her skin, not unless it was desperate. Even so it seemed reluctant to leave her, staring into her face with cold suspicion.

 "You're no one," it said. "A wingless fly."

 It buzzed softly through its lips, its breath ruffling Iris' hair. She cringed away, and the light of desire sparked in its eyes again. But after a beat it was standing upright and breezing away, the store door jingling shut in its wake.  

* * *

Iris didn't stay on her back for long. Shuddering and quaking like an addict she got to her feet, both hands braced against the counter. She began tearing the dry remnants of her dress into strips to tie around her bleeding neck and form a makeshift sanitary belt for her wounded privates. Iris hoped that the clown hadn't torn her too badly; there was no _way_  that she was going to the emergency room. The bus journey home, too, was out of the question- too many curious eyes and besides, she didn't want to stain the seats. Lucky she'd brought a long summer jacket to work that morning, for at least she would be able to walk home with some semblance of dignity.

 Before she could leave Iris cleared up the mess that had been made in the chase, restacking shelves, using a carpet shampoo from a closet in the back room to bring out the blood and urine stains from the floor. It might have been easier to call Mr. White and pretend some youths had wandered in off the street and assaulted her, but she couldn't face the sympathy, the gruelling police interviews. There was, at least, something cathartic about scrubbing out her shame, something real. 

  _Real_. Iris hadn't imagined the clown, she was certain of that now. But what of her other hallucinations, the ones she'd been having since she was small? Her father might have been able to answer that, she supposed, if he was as nuts as the Derry locals seemed to believe. He hadn't been in touch for years. Not since he'd left when Iris was seven, vanishing in the night without a word or a note to say why or where he had gone. If he _had_ left a letter Iris' mother would only have torn it into pieces: she'd always quaked with indignant rage at the mention of his name.

 "He don't love you, babygirl," she would say. "He's a sick man, and he don't have room in his head for no one. Maybe he's gone out and got himself a new family. Eh, let's see how long that lasts. Robert- 'scuse me, your daddy -he drives everyone away, after a time."

 Iris had few memories of her father that were her own. Those that remained were of a slender, sad-eyed man who worked too hard, always falling straight asleep in an armchair the minute he got home. Still, he'd pull Iris onto his lap and kiss her first, and she'd lie with her head on his chest, listening to his heart and the gurglings of his stomach far below. She remembered his scent: the machine oil on his skin, peppery cologne that tickled the hairs in her nose and made her giggle.

 Sometimes his eyes rolled under their lids, and he murmured things that made no sense. Sometimes they frightened her. When he shook himself awake Iris would cling to his shoulders and say that she loved him. He would sit quiet, then. Very rarely did he say it back.

 He hadn't needed to. As many years as Iris had spent resenting and trying to forget him she knew that her father had loved her, and she had known it then, too. He would tell her stories about animals and fairies that were better than any book, and often brought her strange little presents home from work- keys that didn't work, smooth pennies, tiny rings for her fingers and toes. Sometimes he would be strange and distant- the days he'd _seen_ things, Iris now supposed. But even then he would touch her shoulder and call her his 'Rissy', or 'Missy Rissy' to make her laugh.

 Iris couldn't remember him doing anything of the kind with her mother. They never kissed or embraced, only spoke in low, spitting arguments. She hadn't been surprised when he left, only wounded, deeply wounded. Sometimes she wondered if he'd known what her mother would make her do, all those years later, if he knew it now. If he did she couldn't hate him; it must play on his mind as much as it did hers.

_Where is he now, then? Why hasn't he reached out?_

Perhaps he'd gone to an asylum, as Iris had done, or snuck away somewhere to kill himself. The latter possibility had somehow never occured to her before, and the weight of it fell upon Iris like a cannonball. Suddenly she was crying again, tears blinding her as she collected the spilled contents of her purse to carry home.

* * * 

The walk back to the apartment was gruelling, miserable. The lazy afternoon sun had dulled to rain, soaking Iris' hair and thin jacket flat against her aching body. She had decided to skip out on that evening's therapy appointment. There was no point to it now, a realisation that left her as leaden and empty as the idea that her father might be dead. Pennywise was _real_ , and she could not talk it away. 

As she entered the apartment the thought stirred through her again and again. She headed straight for the bathroom, stripping her soiled clothes carelessly and tossing them aside. By now Iris was all too aware of her stickiness and lingering smells. She hadn't been comfortable using the bath since the her first run-in with Pennywise, so she did her best to sluice off at the sink. Her bar of Dove soap was soon caked with filth, red foam churning down the drain. 

Iris left attending to her neck and other wounds til last. Cringing, she unwound her makeshift bandages, dabbing at the torn skin beneath with a damp sponge. It was worst between her legs, the throbbing pain forcing her to stand with her ankles turned out like an awkward child. She didn't want to touch herself _there_ , not now, perhaps never again. In fact Iris wasn't sure there had ever been a time that she'd been comfortable giving herself sexual pleasure. Oh, she'd _done_ it, of course, touching wet fingertips to secret folds in the dark, but afterwards guilt and self-disgust made her want to scratch her hand off. She forced herself to probe the area, checking the extent of the damage. There were a few tears, plenty of spots rubbed raw, but that was all.  

The cabinet above the sink was mostly stocked with Iris' anti-hallucinogenics, but there was a roll of bandage strips on the middle shelf and a bottle of antiseptic wash, a quarterfull. Iris patched herself up with unsteady hands, gagging each time she touched a wound. She kept imagining Pennywise's tongue and cock inside her, tasting her, defiling her, attempting to tease out the worst of her fear. It hadn't managed it _yet_ , praise Jesus, but it probably would, sooner or later. Iris felt her face crumple like a dried lemon rind and smacked her fist against the sink, splitting a knuckle.  

She couldn't go though it all again. No more. Was this going to be her life, being raped and scrubbing herself clean?  The only reason she'd been able to get through everyday life so far was because she knew that she'd managed it before. It was a piss-poor reason to carry on, Iris knew. She had no lover, no ambitions, and the few acquaintances she saw on weekends felt _sorry_ for her, she could tell. They liked her enough, _sure_ , but only in the vague, patronising way a teacher might hold affection for the nerd at the front of the class. Her few hobbies- reading, painting, watching documentaries -were so fucking _pedestrian_. Even the face blinking back at her in the mirror over the sink was bland: wide eyes, a small chin, a _nothing_ face. Iris felt like a paper cut-out rather than a real person, thin and flimsy and a little grubby at the edges.

She did not know who she was.

The room seemed to pulse gently around her, listing at an off-angle. This was Iris' usual sign of a panic attack, and she ignored it. She _should_ be panicking, not drifting passively through her own life like a ghost. Her hands rifled through the cupboard again, restless, blindly seeking. They closed upon the handle of a fresh shaving razor, the little blade winking like a wicked eye in the dull light. Iris stared, touching her thumb to their edges. 

_Go on, Rissy,_ it seemed to say.

Iris imagined its voice as the coarse, cigarette-gutted growl of a New York taxi driver.

_You've been cut up plenty today, why not cut yaself some more? You liked pain once, remember, Riss? Hell, you looked forward to it. Let everything out like air outta a damn balloon, so ya didn't feel so bad about letting it happen. Go on, do it, kiddo. And if you like it, well, maybe you can go all the way and slit ya wrists._

It was only a pretend voice, yet Iris listened to it raptly. She fiddled with the razor, prising the blade free of the plastic handle so that it sat in her palm. Then before she could change her mind she sliced the top of her arm, a quick little chicken scratch that made her suck her breath. Again and again she slashed, criss-crossing and cross-hatching, an elated buzz filling her ears. Only when her hand slipped and knicked the knob of her wristbone did she stop, her whole body jittering on an awful high. 

Iris twisted her arm to look at it. The cuts were shallow, juvenile, looking more like cat scratches than anything. They barely even bled, tiny crimson beads rising reluctantly to the surface. A flood of humiliation crashed through her, hot and slippery.

_What am I doing?_

Still, that sick little buzz remained, even after she wrapped her arm up to cover the wounds.


	4. The Mule and the Stick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maturin makes contact with Iris with an important message. Pennywise returns again with a request that may push her into madness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pour yourselves some coffee as this chapter is a long one!
> 
> Also the format is a little fucked, glitching out on me

That night Iris dreamt deep, unsettled dreams. They weren't abstract or hazy, the way dreams usually were, but pin-sharp, almost cinematic. Most of them were echoes of the rapes, forcing Iris to view them from outside herself as a helpless voyeur. She kept trying to open her eyes and wake herself up, but each time sleep called her back into its horrors again. 

At last the nightmares broke and a new dream began. Iris found herself staring at a scaly wall- _skin_ , she realised- and a massive, somnolent eye. The eye of a turtle. She couldn't see enough of its body to have deduce this; somehow she knew it without seeing. She knew its name.

_His_ name.

Trembling, Iris put out her hands, reverent in His presence.

"You are Maturin."

"Yes," the turtle said. 

His voice was a gentle, grandfatherly rumble that Iris seemed to _feel_ rather than hear. It rocked her with its purity, soothing the horror of the other dreams away.

"Maturin," He repeated. "A name amongst many that belong to me. And you are Iris."

"Yes," said Iris. Then she added, "We've seen each other before. When I... took myself away."

"A wise trick. Do not forget it."

" _It_ told me you wouldn't help me," Iris said, her outstretched hands beginning to shake. "The clown. It seemed to think I wasn't important, that I found you... by accident."

"You did," Maturin said. "But you _could_ have sought me out, if you'd known how to. My enemy is prideful; It underestimates the import of accidents, and considers Itself above all creatures. You might call It a God, in your language. Perhaps It is so. But even Gods overlook the virtue of humans, at times."

He spoke fondly, indulgently, as if of a beloved child. Iris took courage from this.

"Please tell me how to get rid of it," she said. " _Please_. You must know that it's killing children, that it enjoys it. And it... I don't know why, but this... Pennywise thing decided to pick on me, too. You saw it, I know you did. How it hurt me. It hasn't eaten me yet, but it will. Help me stop it. There must be a way."

"That task is not for you," the turtle replied, kindly. "Let others take the stand. You must only protect yourself."

"How? It... it's much stronger than I am. Smarter. I'm weak and stupid."

"No. You are gifted. You Shine. Another will explain how to hone your talent, in time, but not I."

"Why?"

Iris fell to her knees and gazed deep into that loving eye, her own wrought face reflected back in its colossal pupil.

"It is not my place. I can only intervene so much. Know only that I will watch for you, and speak if I see your courage fail."

Maturin closed His eye as if to sleep, plunging the dream world into utter black. 

 * * *

Iris awoke with a jolt, smacking her head against the wall beside her bed. She had already forgotten her dreams by the time she opened her eyes, but the effect of them lingered, particularly the last. Baffled, Iris raked her mind for where this glimmer of positivity had sprung from. She'd gone to bed wanting death and woken up thinking there might just be a reason to live. But _what?_

Iris felt irritated, as if the world was purposely holding back the information as a trump card against her. Still, annoyance was better than misery; it got her out of bed, anyhow.

She glanced at the clock on the beside table and groaned. 10am felt an early start for a Saturday, but the idea of moving back into unknowable sleep was, for once, highly unattractive. After going through the routine of washing and bandaging yesterday's wounds at the bathroom sink Iris padded barefoot into the living room area, thinking to catch a little morning TV. She skipped past the news, feeling a little guilty for doing so, and settled on a talk show. A busty female presenter was interviewing a hollow-eyed young actor. Iris recognised him from some horror flick she'd watched a month or so ago, playing the monster, but he didn't look quite as fetching without the makeup, somehow. 

It felt good to let herself be drawn into their mundane conversation, to forget the spikes of pain from merely sitting in the armchair, the tears that kept leaking unbidden from the corners of her eyes. She got up partway through to make herself a mug of coffee and down some painkillers. The thought of eating made her stomach clench, so she skipped breakfast and went back to the TV again.

_Are you really going to avoid thinking about that clown, and what it's doing to you? It could come back at any time, and you're just sitting here, doing nothing._

"Damn fucking right I am," Iris muttered.

She leaned back into the armchair cushions and forced herself to be numb, vacant. The talk show was replaced by an old sitcom, then after that a strange Italian film where a girl ran through technicolour hallways, her beautiful eyes as big as saucers with fear. The soundtrack was eerie, repetitive, almost hypnotic. Iris found herself lulled by it, and soon she was half-dozing again. 

Little by little the coffee mug slipped from her fingers and spilled its dregs onto the carpet. 

Still she did not wake.

_Tap. Tap. Tap_.

Iris jerked her head up and gazed blearily around. She thought that she must have imagined the sound until it came again, soft, insistent, undeniable. 

Someone was knocking at the door. 

Now-familiar dread pricked her spine, but rather than remain frozen in her seat she got up and snatched a serrated knife from the kitchen countertop. If it was that _thing_  out there she would go straight for its eyes, then its gut. No stopping this time, no dumbly standing around. Having seen how fast the clown could gather itself after an injury Iris wasn't sure that she could _kill_ it, but driving it off temporarily would be enough.

It was so light, that tapping, _too_ light, surely, for a fist.

_Why doesn't it just let itself in?_

Iris put an eye to the peephole and squinted out onto the doorstep. She couldn't see anything unusual, but perhaps the clown was crouched down at the bottom of the door, out of sight. It was certainly the kind of cruel, prankish thing it would do. She could imagine it springing up like a Jack-in-the-box, its body distorted in a grisly coil. Iris took a long, shuddering breath and opened the door, keeping it on its security chain. 

There was still no sign of Pennywise, or a person of any kind. Instead Iris found herself staring at a light carboard box in circus print wrapping paper, suspended in the air by four red balloons. A light breeze caused them to bob gently back and forth, nudging the box up against the door with the _tap, tap_ she had heard from the living room.

Iris squawked out a laugh and smothered it with her hand. 

The box swayed closer, and she spotted a white card taped to the top. There was a spidery scrawl of handwriting printed across it: 'To Rissy, from your new friend Robert Gray, aka Pennywise the Dancing Clown'.

"Fuck, no," said Iris, and shut the door. 

Moments later she had it open again, and off the chain. There were children living on this block, after all, and if she didn't take the gift it would likely end up in one of their hands. The box might be full of poisoned candy, a biting finger trap, some other horrid trick. It would be better to let it hurt _her_ rather than some innocent, Iris rationalised. She was used to pain, by now, after all.

Iris brought the box into the apartment and locked the door behind her. This wouldn't keep Pennywise out, she knew, but it made her feel more in control of the situation. She dumped the box onto the kitchen counter and used the knife she was still gripping in one fist to slash the balloon strings. They rose up and hit the ceiling, taut rubber squeaking against smooth plaster. The noise made her flinch, and even as she started cautiously tearing the wrapping paper and cutting open the box Iris kept glancing up at the ominous balloons.

Inside the box was a clod of dirty sawdust. There was a pungent stink of animal and rotting meat about it, as if it had been scraped from the bottom of a tiger cage at the circus. Wrinkling her nose, Iris prised the thick clumps apart so see what was undeneath. At the very top was a scroll of shiny paper. Iris shook it at arms' length, half-expecting beetles or spiders to drop out of it. There were only gaudy pictures and words, all straight from a carnival poster.

'Come See the Pennywise Circus! Come Float and See the Sights! Better Still, Why Not Join His Merry Band and Be One of The Crew? Revels and Joys and Rewards Await You!'

The images depicted Pennywise- a mocking, jovial figure -and Iris hersel, dressed as a clown with a downturned smile and painted tears. As she watched that miserable visage seemed to move, blinking and working in _moues_ of silent distress. Iris screwed the poster up into a ball and jammed it down the waste disposal unit, sweat standing on the back of her neck. She wanted to tip the rest of the box's contents down after it, but somehow felt compelled to take them out and look at them first. 

Using the tip of the knife she scraped a tiny piece of metal out over the rim of the box and dropped it into her palm. To her amazement it was one of the broken little keys her father used to bring home from work as playful gifts, her initials carved into the teeth. It was warm in her hand, as if he'd held it before her. 

How had Pennywise aqcuired it? Was it some illusion, or had It really sought out one of those long-lost keys to present to her? Shaking with emotion Iris set the key down on the countertop and looked at it so hard that it became imprinted on her vision. This was a kind gesture, an offering. She didn't trust it, coming from the clown. 

The last item in the box was a long, wicked-looking stick, whittled thin and sharp at the tip. Iris turned it over in her hands, repulsed without quite understanding why. She'd often seen young boys make such things to idly switch leaves from nearby trees or to fence each other, falling about dramatically when the makeshift weapon struck its target. But _this_ was not a toy. There was weight to it, intent. She turned, intending to snap it over the counter-top, but before she could bring it down the stick was jerked out of her grip and lashed across her face.

Dripping blood, Iris whirled around, her knife squeezed tight in both hands. Pennywise stood looming over her, making the whole room seem suddenly much darker and claustophobic. It passed the stick between its gloved fingers, Iris's blood staining the off-white fabric. 

"Not _again_ ," said Iris.

Her voice was weak with exhaustion, fear quenching that morning's glimmer of strength in an instant.

"So ungrateful," cooed Pennywise. "After all my little gifts. Especially that one."

It nodded slyly towards the key.

"Where did you get it? Is this another game to... torment me?"

"Everything's a game, to a clown, don't you know that? But Iris, I think you'll like this one. I want to strike a deal with you."

_Don't trust it._

"What do you mean?"

Pennywise touched the stick to the collar of Iris' pyjamas and ran it between the buttons, bringing beads of blood up on her breasts. Iris would have lunged with the knife but the clown wasn't close enough, and would be able to dodge with little trouble at all. 

"Shush now," Pennywise said. "Let me tell you a story about a stubborn mule at a circus, that was meant to pull the clown's cart. Well, the mule stood still, refusing to move, humiliating its Master. Silly mule! The clown had a trick up its sleeve. It dangled a carrot in front of the mule and rode the cart with a stick in its hand. If the mule was good and moved forward, it got the carrot. If it was naughty and stood still, oh ho. It would get a beating, and so it learned. Do as Master says, and you won't get hurt. Didn't you read the poster, Iris?"

"I threw it away."

"Ohhh, but you read it first, so you understand. I want you to do something for me, and if you do you won't get the stick."

"You mean you won't... eat me."

"Not for a long, _long_ time." 

The clown brought the stick to its mouth and licked Iris' blood from the tip, smacking its lips in delight. 

"I don't want you help you," said Iris. "You're a monster. I hate you."

She sounded like a child, she knew, but she couldn't help the outburst. 

"You want the stick?" asked Pennywise, narrowing its eyes. " _Pain_ , suffering?"

Iris shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. 

"Then maybe you just don't want your reward," said the clown, and plucked the key from the counter. 

"That's mine!" Iris cried. 

She jumped for the clown's raised arm, but it held it too high, shaking it as if taunting a kitten. 

"Your daddy gave you this, didn't he? Bobby O'Brien. I could have a little word, one Bob to another, and you could have him back again. Want to know why he's been away for so very long? He's forgotten you. Everyone forgets Derry, when they leave. I _make_ them."

It grinned, its teeth bristling like the spines of a sea urchin.

"Come on, Iris. It'll be easy. Little boys and girls are always told not to talk to strange men, but pretty girls... they'd follow you like puppies. Don't you think?"

Iris retched, the coffee she'd managed to swallow that morning gushing to the back of her throat. She hung over the sink, gut clenching, well aware of Pennywise's ecstatic gaze on the back of her neck.

"You don't need _me_ for that," she croaked, once she'd spat the last of the coffee down the drain. "I saw you as my mother. You could make yourself look like any woman you wanted."

"Poor, humble Pennywise can only be in one place at a time," said the clown. "And I have my eye on _many_ precious children. Would you want me to starve, and never see your father again? I could keep him away for ever. Or call him to me. His fears might be even tastier than yours, _Rissy_."

Iris jolted at the nickname, lilted in a mockery of her father's voice. She felt trapped. To agree to Pennywise's offer would make her a monster, to refuse would condemn her father to death. But perhaps the clown was lying, and had no real idea where Robert O'Brien was. She scrutinised the creature's face, trying to read it for some hint of trickery, but it wasn't human enough to give anything away.

"No," said Iris, at last. "No. I won't help you slaughter children, whatever you promise. You animal."

There was real contempt in her words, strong and final. Pennywise sniffed the air sharply and growled.

"The stick it is, then."

"Touch me and I'll cut you. I... I did it yesterday. I can do it again."

"Me? Are you sure?" the clown asked viciously. "You seem so much better at cutting _yourself_."

It grabbed her by the bandaged arm, twisting it behind her. As it did so Iris slammed the knife deep into Pennywise's right eye, plunging it in to the hilt. Black blood exploded into the air, blinding Iris for a second or two. She pulled out the knife with a grisly sucking noise and attempted to jam it in the clown's throat, aware that it had no hand free to stop her. It rammed her up against the kitchen counter, its bleeding face flickering and changing. An orderly she'd hated, a fellow patient from Juniper Hill with a head full of cancer and vicious madness, then its own again, demonic with rage.

Iris slashed It across the mouth, splitting its lips like dark fruit. Pennywise dropped the arm it had been holding and went for the other, squeezing her wrists so hard that the bone popped audibly. Iris screamed in agony, and the knife clattered away across the kitchen tiles. Still she kept fighting, twisting and thrashing with abandon.

_Live. Live. Live._

The clown spun her around and rammed her face down on the kitchen counter, bruising her jaw on cold marble. The surface suddenly bubbled around her like a liquid, gluing Iris into place. 

"Make a deal with me, Rissy," the clown hissed, pressing itself against her so that she could feel its bestial hardness. "Don't be like the mule."

"No," she said.

Tutting, Pennywise caught a handful of Iris' pyjamas and tore, exposing her bare back and buttocks. Its rank breath touched her skin, covering her in gooseflesh. Then Iris felt the sharp end of the stick tap against her spine and knew what it was about to do. She braced herself, biting her lips so hard that they bled. The clown snapped the stick against her lower back, raising a weal of fire. Iris shrieked again, setting Pennywise off in a gail of hideous giggles. It hit her again, again, again, striking her shoulder, her ass, the lips of her cunt. Skin burst under the blows, blood spilling hotly down between Iris' legs. 

"You must be _desperate_ to float," said the clown, its voice guttural with pleasure.

Its tongue lapped her wounds, moved down between her thighs. Iris tried to squirm up away from it, but the tongue was quick, darting into her cunt and filling it to the hilt. To Iris' horror she felt a physical twitch of response, her body desperate to relinquish her pain.

_I want to die. I hope I bleed to death, just let me die. I deserve it for being so fucking weak._

As she thought this another voice filled her head, not her own, oddly familiar.

_"No. You are gifted. You Shine. Another will explain how to hone your talent, in time, but not I."_

At once Iris remembered her dream, the wisdom of the great turtle Maturin. He had wanted her to fight, would want her to do anything she could to survive this. Another thought struck her: what if the other the turtle had spoken of was her father? Hadn't she thought of him herself, yesterday?

"Stop. Stop. Please stop. I'll help you."

The clown's tongue slithered from her cunt, and she felt it smile against her thigh. 

 


	5. Chud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Iris gives in to the whims of Pennywise no one is safe...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... this is awkward lol. I haaate leaving fics on hiatus but with all the media I consume I have to let stories sit a while before I return to them so they don't feel stale. Here's an update at long last!

Sarah Dubois loved her job. Evens a small child she'd wanted to be a nurse, spending many an afternoon mopping the brows of stuffed animals or making bandages out of toilet paper. Now she was living the unglamorous and often stressful reality her enthusiasm rarely wavered. It helped to know that she was useful, making a change to someone else’s life whom she might never see again. Sarah had, therefore, never much liked her colleagues, most of whom had a habit of loitering at the nurse’s station to gossip at their patients' expense. There were plenty of jobs available even in a small town like Derry where one didn’t have to empty bed pans or swab children's busted kneecaps; why they stayed Sarah would never understand. It made her feel embarrassed and displaced, as if _she_ was in the wrong for daring to be positive. Still, the moment she was back on the ward those thoughts would be left behind, pale in comparison to her cause.

It only took one night to for that to change.

Saturdays were always busy at Derry Hospital, particularly in the evenings when drunks and domestic cases flooded the waiting room. This had been no different. Sarah mopped cuts, transported bowls of piss and puke back and forth, comforted slurring adults and talked youngsters out of tears. By 2am her feet were aching like hell, but with activity slowly settling down she decided to do one last round of the wards before clocking out and heading for home. Sarah hobbled between the rows of beds, smiling over wan, sleeping faces with saintly grace. It was easy to imagine that this was how Florence Nightingale had felt, though her charges had been a little more noble than Derry’s wasted revelers, Sarah supposed.

At the end of her fourth ward there was a bed with its curtains drawn, a moving figure outlined in shadow within. This in itself wasn’t unusual, but Sarah couldn’t recall seeing any other nurses or doctors head in that direction- most were on a break or ending shifts by now. Besides, the figure was too tall to be anyone she recognised, and very much the wrong shape.

Sarah scrolled back through her memories, trying to recall who was occupying that particular bed. It was hard to keep track of individual patients with so many comings and goings; apart from the older folk no one ever seemed to stay for long. She seemed to recall it had been a young woman, yet another suspected domestic violence case. Yes, that was it- the girl had been found collapsed in her apartment a week ago, wrists broken, open wounds covering her body. Some self-inflicted, some not. There had been evidence of multiple rapes, though no sign of a break-in had been found at the property and the woman was not talking. The doctors seemed to assume a boyfriend had been responsible- or, perhaps, a client. Having only lived in town for only a year Sarah wasn't too familiar with local scandals, but the woman had apparently been the victim of some well-publicized sex crime as a teen. Trafficking or some such, a legacy that, like most Derry horrors, had been buried but not quite forgotten.

_Iris?_ Iris O’Brien, that was the name, Sarah was sure of it. A quiet, dark-haired little woman with a faint Irish burr to her voice, though she’d had little to say for herself. Until now Iris had not received any visitors nor had she requested one, wanting, Sarah supposed, to be left alone. Besides, no visitors were permitted out of hours, and it seemed unlikely that another patient would take it upon themselves to befriend the woman in the night. That left only the possibility of an intruder, and Sarah didn’t much like the thought of that. She moved towards the curtain, meaning to reach up and jerk it aside.

Then she stopped, her hand lancing empty air.

 The woman, _Iris_ , was talking, but the shadowy figure standing with her did not answer. Or if it did Sarah couldn’t hear it, and the thought of whoever it was _whispering_ in the dark made her feel suddenly cold and sick.

“Go away,” Iris was saying. “I told you I’d help you. But not now. You hurt me. I _can’t_ do anything for you.”

_Her voice…_

Sarah shuddered. She’d witnessed people in pain a hundred times before, even dying, but never had she heard a human voice carry this level of hopelessness. She wondered if the person behind the curtain had a weapon, and considered retreating to call for help. But something kept her there, riveted despite her own good judgement.

“No,” Iris was saying. “No. Leave me alone. What else can you take from me?”

The dark shape leaned forward, and Sarah saw the smaller outline of the patient kick the side of the curtain in weak attempt to get out of bed. The pale limb appeared through a gap in the fabric, flailing thin air. Something clasped hold of the ankle- not a _hand_ , or not a human one, at least. To Sarah it still looked like a shadow, reminding her of fevered night-terrors she'd had once as a little girl. Until now she'd buried those dreams, shadow people jerking and grinning on her bedroom walls. Now they were back, and unable to help herself she let out an ugly cry. At once she was sure that the thing behind the curtain had heard her. It did not speak- those nightmare shades never had, after all -but somehow Sarah was certain that it knew who she was, and wanted her.

Every thought of protecting the patient left her in a moment. Iris, Sarah decided, had made some deal with that _thing_ giving it claim over her, and whatever happened to her as a result was nothing to do with Sarah. Nothing at all.

_Damn it_ , she thought. _If I hadn’t been so damn set on being fucking Florence Nightingale I could have been in my car three miles down the road by now._

 Sarah turned and fled across the ward, her aching soles throbbing with every step. Iris called after her, or at the shadow thing; Sarah wasn’t sure. Either way she suddenly found herself falling, something cold and slippery tangling her calves together. Around the ward a few patients had woken up and were staring at her in dumb bewilderment. None of them said a word, or screamed, or attempted to help her.

_The_ _y can’t see it. They think I’m just an idiot who’s tripped over something. WHY CAN’T THEY SEE IT?_

Sarah scrambled up on all fours, hoarse little screams falling from her mouth one after the other. She could feel the shadow-thing pouring over her like wet mist, its awful fingers sliding towards her eyes. The sense of helplessness was almost worse than the terror, making her a child again.

“Pennywise!” Iris cried, loud enough that there were a few bleary complaints from the patients who'd been awakened by the struggle. “Leave her alone!”

Sarah heard a distinct, rancid chuckle by her ear, and then the vile presence retreated. She got to her feet and ran, not questioning why it had released her. She didn’t care. The only thought that struck her as she bolted towards the hospital’s main entrance was that she was going to quit her job tomorrow and move back to Frazier, where she’d lived before, and work at the nursing home again. People had been nicer there, anyhow, and _It_ might not follow her.

Whatever It was.

*

Iris closed her eyes, hoping that by the time she opened them again Pennywise would be gone. She could feel the weight of Its insidious gaze sliding up and down the length of her body. This was the first time It had visited her since she’d arrived at the hospital, and although only a week had passed she sensed that It had craved her flesh. A small part of Iris hoped that It would go too far and kill her, but the part that cradled Maturin’s wisdom made her afraid of that.

“Leave me,” she whispered, opening her eyes at last. “I told you, I can’t do anything until I’m better. If you hurt me again it’ll take even longer.”

“No no, Rissy, it’ll be so much easier this way,” It said. “Little kiddies just love to ask questions about broken bones. They’ll flock to you, won’t they? Flock to _me_.”

It gave a little jig as It crept back to her, clearly smug with Its own predatory genius. Iris was disturbed that It dared walk so boldly in a public place. She wondered if It was invisible to the other patients, or if they saw and thought themselves only dreaming.

“Please let me rest.”

“Please, please, _please_. But what about thank you? You’re very lucky to have your friend Pennywise take care of you. I _whispered_ in a doctor’s ear to stop them sending you back to Juniper Hill.”

It leaned down and ran Its thick tongue across her earlobe, ropes of slobber dripping onto her throat. Iris wrenched her head away.

 “You’re lying. They wouldn’t.”

“They shouldn’t have let you go, never ever. They’re all criminally insane in there, of course, and so are you. It’s wasn’t just your arms you cut, all those years ago.”

Under the plaster casts Iris felt her wounds itch. She screwed up her face and kept her mouth shut. It was only trying to provoke her, no doubt for the same reason It had come in the night to flay open her wounds: fear, pain and resentment only complimenting the flavour.

"Nothing to say?" It asked her, blinking in a childishly simpering fashion. "You're so boring, making poor Pennywise remember your own story for you. You know what happened when the coppers took your mother and you were sent away for the very first time? The loooooney bin?"

"I... was seeing things. I wasn't well."

"That's not all. Not enough to have you penned in with rapists and baby murderers. Nope! You hurt somebody- you tried to forget THAT, to pretend you were a good girl. I know better."

It was true; Iris had tried to shut out the reason for her transfer to Juniper Hill, but only because her therapists had said that it was the right thing to do. No point dwelling on something she hadn't done in her right mind, that she could not change. Now here that memory was again, bubbling up like gas in a dirty pool. 

Pennywise shook with glee, Its face shifting to one that was smaller, younger, frightened. A girl Iris knew from her first hospital stay, and had not liked. Blood plumed from a puncture under her left eye from which hung a plastic fork, snapped and sharpened to a point. Iris knew it was an illusion, just one of many the creature had in Its repertoire, but if that face came any closer she was certain that she'd scream. 

"Alright. I remember. Her name was Angie Donovan. I… I guess I attacked her, and I didn't regret it afterwards, even when I got better. I hallucinated a lot of stuff that made no sense, especially when I was little. But the things I saw when she was around... I knew it was all true. I did."

The Angie-mask shed awful, bloody tears, its black eyes bulging with the pressure built behind them. Below the neck It was still a clown, Its gloved hands honking thin air. Iris guessed that Pennywise was luxuriating in her distress. If the turtle's words hadn't been so fresh in her mind she might well have been in pieces. As it was she still felt His strength, holding her in her weakness like a scaffold.

“I saw things the doctors and orderlies didn’t know about her. How she’d lock her little brother in the closet when she was meant to be looking after him, spit in his food, bite him… kid-stuff, really, but she kept on doing it when she was old enough to know better. And she wasn’t crazy, not like _that_ , anyway. She had OCD, had to hit her head on a wall three times if she didn’t line her cutlery up right, or if she didn’t enter a room with the same foot she left on. _That_ had nothing to do with how she treated her brother. She was just mean, and every time I was around her I heard him crying, sometimes even saw him… he’d tell me what she’d done, and I couldn’t stand it.”

The clown said nothing, only tilted Its vile head so that a frond of Angie’s long black hair touched Iris’ bedsheet. Blood smeared over the fabric, black in the dark.

“I stole a fork one lunchtime,” said Iris, determined to finish. “Sharpened it on the slats underneath my mattress. Angie’s brother whispered to me that night, begged me to help him, that he was starving… I followed him to Angie’s room, down the hall. She was awake, and yelled at me to leave. She called me… names. Said things about me, and the bad men my mother brought home. I really thought in that moment that she was evil. I really did. I hit her in the face with the broken fork- just once. Just once. It didn’t kill her, but she bled so much that I thought for a second I had. We were both screaming when the orderlies came. They should have taken me to Juniper Hill that day, but I begged them not to. I stayed with family for six months, and the hallucinations got worse. They didn’t know where else to send me, and with what happened to Angie and everything else on my record… that’s where I went. But God, I will not be ashamed of it. I won’t.”

She’d been whispering to avoid further disturbing the other patients, but even so that last statement came out strong, hard, immovable. The power of it thrummed in the air like a chord of some strange music, and Iris saw the creature recoil. The Angie-mask peeled away from Its face in rubbery tendrils, revealing the clown’s leer beneath.

“Such a pretty story-teller,” It crooned. “But don’t get too big for your boots, bucko. You are not good, or brave, or special. You’re a weak little girl, that’s all, and mean, too. Maybe Angie deserved what she got. Maybe she didn’t. But you’ll hurt anyone I ask you to, even innocents.”

“No. I never promised that. I’ll bring them to you, that’s all. I won’t have anything to do with your… your filthy habits. Now go away.”

Pennywise growled, and suddenly It sprang onto the bed, forcing its foul mouth against Iris’ in the mockery of a kiss. Its tongue locked around hers, and in her head a word exploded like a tiny, dying star-

_CHUD_

-and though she didn’t know what it meant she felt _meaning_ there.


End file.
